


Shattered Glass

by drwhogirl



Series: Lucy Trainor [4]
Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27265381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drwhogirl/pseuds/drwhogirl
Summary: “I was shattered glass but you weren’t a repairman.” ― Dominic Riccitello(The story is significantly less graphic than half of what happens in the show, but better safe than sorry)
Series: Lucy Trainor [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867765
Kudos: 2





	Shattered Glass

“Larry, have you ever considered how strange this is?”

Larry sighed and turned to look at the chief. “How strange what is?” he asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Lucy.”

Larry was right. He hadn’t wanted to know the answer, after all. “What about her?”

“Has it not occurred to you that she is too good?”

“What do you mean?”

“The two of you are too similar.”

“We’re related,” Larry pointed out, not particularly interested in listening to what the chief had to say.

“Even taking that into account. You share many of the same interests. She has a very similar history to your own. There are a number of factors that cause concern. She also has too many ties to the Bureau of Normalcy. She is dating someone who was one of their agents. She went to college with someone else who later joined the Bureau.”

“And your point is?”

“What if she is one of their agents? They’ve done it before, used a family member to infiltrate a group or organization. They used Flex’s wife to get to Victor, remember. They also, a very long time ago, recruited Mento’s long lost sister. They wanted someone inside the Doom Patrol. She stayed with them, earned their trust, found something in common with each of them. Then, one day two years after she moved in, she tried to turn them over. They escaped, but only just.”

“That’s not possible.” Larry paused for a moment. “Why are you only mentioning this now? She’s been here for over a year. Why now?”

“Because I was blind to how close you were getting and because I have only recently discovered how many connections there are between her and the Bureau.”

“Connections like?”

“She went to college with an agent Morris Wilson.”

“Maura left the Bureau a long time ago... Lucy didn’t tell me they knew each other.”

“They were college roommates. And were you aware that she got a position on the Mercury Mission, in part due to a character testimony from one John Bowers?”

That made Larry falter. “She knew John?”

“Apparently so.”

“No, she would have told me.”

“Unless she had a reason to keep it a secret.” The chief suggested.

Larry wanted to believe in her. He really did. At first. But once an idea is in your head, there’s no getting rid of it. He wanted to trust her, but the chief made a worryingly good point. In Larry’s life, anything good was bound to try to kill you eventually. Maybe she really was just the latest in a long line.

* * *

Larry eventually found his granddaughter sitting in the window in the library, reading. She looked up and gave him a smile, which faltered when she saw the look on his face. “Is everything all right?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” she asked, confusion written across her face.

“That you knew John.”

Lucy looked away, focusing on her hands as they closed the book she was holding as she did so. “How did you find out?”

“So, it’s true.”

“Yes, it’s true. How did you find out?”

“The Chief found the reference he wrote you for NASA.”

“The what?” She seemed confused, but Larry wasn’t buying it for a moment.

“Oh, don’t try and act all innocent. He wrote you a reference; you paid his medical bills; it’s all here.” Larry smacked the folder he had been carrying on the table next to her.

“I…”

“And what about Maura?”

“What about her?”

“So, you do know her.”

“We went to college together.” She was beginning to get increasingly confused by this… interrogation?

“I should have known.”

“What? Grandpa, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t you _grandpa_ me,” Larry snapped. He might be being harsh, but she was here to hurt his friends, and he wasn’t going to let anyone do that again. “You’ve been lying to me. To all of us.”

“I’ve never lied to you.” Lucy’s voice was shaking. This was the first time he had ever lost his temper with her, and she didn’t even know why.

“You’re lying again! Either tell the truth or leave. Leave and don’t come back.”

She begged him to reconsider, that she had nowhere else to go. But his mind had been made up. It had to be an act.

Within the hour, Lucy was gone. It was only as he stood in the doorway to her empty room that Larry began to question himself. Was he really doing the right thing?

* * *

Cliff placed his bag on the kitchen table while Larry was making dinner. “Hey, Larry.”

“Hi, Cliff.”

Cliff started going through his bag and pulled out a box. “Do you know where Lucy is? I picked up the camera she wanted.”

“She’s gone.”

“Well, when’s she coming back? We were going to watch _Top Gun_ tonight.”

Larry slammed down the pan he was holding. “She isn’t.”

Cliff turned to look at Larry. “What? Why not?”

“Because she was working for the Bureau,” Larry snapped.

“What did she do?”

“Nothing. We didn’t give her a chance.”

Cliff was beginning to get confused now. “Then how did you know she was working for the Bureau?”

“The Chief told me.”

“You’re fucking with me, right? You didn’t kick your fucking granddaughter out because of the fucking Chief!” Cliff shouted.

“Not just because of him! There was evidence!”

“It better be some fucking good evidence for you to turn out your own granddaughter!”

Larry didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. What was he supposed to say to that? He knew the evidence was slim at best, but he wasn’t ready to believe that just yet.

* * *

This couldn’t be the right place; Cliff was sure of it. Of all the places that Cliff had expected to find his friend, camping under a bridge was pretty far from the top of the list.

“I’m not coming back,” Lucy told Cliff, not looking up from whatever it was she was watching cook over the fire. “There’s nothing for me there.”

“What about your family?”

“At this point, I have been betrayed by everyone I’m related to, so what family exactly?”

“Lucy…”

“No, Cliff!” Lucy snapped, getting to her feet and turning away from him. “Look, I’m done. With all of them. I’m done fighting. Done trying to make other people happy.”

“What do you mean?”

Lucy turned to face him, eyes watery. Full of pain and frustration. “My whole life, I’ve wasted time fighting to be accepted. Fighting to get anything I want. I thought… When I was with you guys… I thought I wouldn’t have to fight anymore. That I could be me. That maybe for one goddamned moment, I could actually have something good.”

“You still can, if you go back and explain your side.”

“What good will it do? It won’t change anything. All it would do it make them pity me. I don’t want pity.”

“What do you want?”

“To be me. I spent my whole life looking up to my grandpa, trying to live my life in a way that would make him proud. In fact, the worst thing anyone ever said to me was that he would be disappointed in me. Now, look where all that got me. I’ve got no friends, no family. Even my girlfriend is gone.”

“She’ll be back,” Cliff attempted to reassure her. “She’s only gone to Mars.”

“Only in our world is that a perfectly normal sentence,” Lucy joked weakly. “But it might not be safe. I mean, what happened the last time anyone tried to go to another planet? It doesn’t matter, though. My concerns aren’t important since I’m obviously evil and have an ulterior motive.”

“Nobody thinks you’re evil.”

“If that was true, I wouldn’t be living under a bridge. Maybe this is for the best. My grandpa proved once and for all he doesn’t want me. Maybe this is a good time to… live my own life… stop caring what he thinks of me and be my own person.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“What I want doesn’t matter. It never has.”

* * *

Cliff pressed a button, turning off the recording.

All the color had drained from Larry’s face. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t she say anything?”

“She shouldn’t have to.” Cliff watched as comprehension began to dawn on Larry. “I get that you have some trust issues. That your son was an asshole. But she has never given you any reason not to trust her. She has only ever tried to help you, but how often have you actually given her needs any thought?”

At first, Larry wasn’t sure how to respond. Cliff made some good points. Some overly harsh and overly blunt points, but good points nevertheless. There was one thing that Cliff had said that bothered him, though. “I do give her needs thought. I’ve made mistakes, but we’ve all made mistakes.”

“So, what are you going to do to make it right?”

* * *

Lucy hadn’t heard them approach. If she had, then maybe it would have been a more even fight. But as it stood, the first she knew she wasn’t alone was when she felt metal biting into her neck.

At first, she thought it was a blade, but blades didn’t bend like that, and it was far too dull. It was when she started struggling to breathe that it finally dawned on her. Her necklace. The one her grandfather gave her. It was being used to strangle her.

Before long, the necklace snapped. She briefly wondered what happened to the pendant, but a sharp blow to the back of the head silenced the thought before it even had time to fully form.

* * *

When they arrived at the bridge, there was nobody there. It was as if there never had been. It would have been safe to assume that the girl had moved on, but there was something… wrong. That was when Larry noticed something glittering on the ground.

He reached down to pick it up. It was Lucy’s necklace, the star he had given her all that time ago. The chain had been snapped, and the pendant was scuffed and dirty.

Larry put the pendant in his pocket. He needed to find her, whatever it took.

* * *

Larry slammed the pendant down on the table in front of The Chief.

“Larry?” The chief looked at it for a moment. “What’s this?”

“It’s Lucy’s. It was Lucy’s.”

“You took it back?” That was obviously the wrong thing to say because Larry turned on him. If he could have, Caulder would have taken a step back. He had never seen Larry this angry. He couldn’t be sure, it was only for a moment, but he even thought he saw the other man’s eyes flash red.

“She’s gone. I made the mistake of listening to you, and she’s gone!” Larry shouted. “She wasn’t working for them, but now she could be in danger, and it’s all your fault!”

“Maybe she just left the necklace behind,” Caulder suggested, although he knew that wasn’t the case. It was likely a phony abduction. Enough to make Larry regret kicking her out, and in a couple of days, she would turn up on their doorstep, claiming to have escaped and expecting to be welcomed back with open arms. But it would be a bad idea to mention his theory right now. Best to play along and talk to Larry when she turned up.

Larry took a deep breath before answering; no longer angry, he felt a deadly calm wash over him. “The chain was broken. However mad she was at me, she would never break Sheryl’s necklace.”

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

“I’ve searched everywhere I can think of; I even used the emergency line to ask Sophie, but nothing.”

“Have you asked your son?” That question was met with a glare that answered it better than words. “Maybe you should try. He is her father; he might know something you don’t.”

“He wouldn’t help me.”

“Maybe not. But any father would go to hell and back for their daughter.”

* * *

“I’m not going to ask you again.” Lucy had expected anger, frustration, something. But the silky smooth voice never wavered in its certainty. “Tell me everything you know about where Caulder is keeping those freaks.”

Lucy couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to as water forced its way into her mouth and nose. Waterboarding was simple, but it was also very effective. Or at least that’s what the Bureau hoped.

As her lungs started screaming for air, she was finally given a chance to breathe. “Do you have an answer for me, Miss Trainor?” Lucy didn’t answer, not verbally anyway. She didn’t want to waste her breath and shook her head instead.

“Well, then.” The man delicately but deliberately started pulling on a pair of thick rubber gloves. “I think it’s time we started getting a little more creative, don’t you?”

* * *

A week had gone by before Larry became desperate enough to try calling his son. Nobody else had heard from Lucy all week, and Paul was getting to be Larry’s last hope.

The plan was that Larry would call and leave a message. Unfortunately, nobody had informed Paul of this plan.

“Hello?” Paul asked.

“Paul, don’t hang up.”

“What do you want?” Paul sounded far from impressed to be hearing from his father, but he hadn’t hung up yet. That was a start.

“Have you heard from Lucy?”

“Not for a while. Why?”

“She’s missing.”

“What do you mean she’s missing? How did you lose my daughter?”

“I didn’t lose her. She left. She’s a grown woman. She’s allowed to leave.” Larry was being defensive and he knew it; he just had to hope Paul wouldn’t…

“I never said she wasn’t. You did something, didn’t you?”

Damn.

“We had an argument. She decided she wanted to go somewhere else to calm down,” Larry explained, hoping Paul wouldn’t want to speak to him as much as he did not want to speak to Paul.

“Where? What was the argument?”

“She… went camping.”

“Camping? Where?”

“Under a bridge.”

“You made your own granddaughter homeless!?”

“She chose to leave, and you can hardly talk!” That sounded juvenile even as Larry said it, but Paul was right, and he knew it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know I wasn’t a great dad to you, but it’s obviously hereditary because your daughter chose to be homeless rather than go to you for help.”

There was silence from the other end of the phone for a while before Paul finally spoke. “Goodbye, Larry.” The dial tone told him that Paul had hung up. At least her dad knew now. At least Larry wouldn’t be the only one searching. At least Paul would be out there too.

* * *

“How you doing, Ems?” There was a faint glimmer from deep within her chest. “I know that feeling.” She tilted her head back against the wall she was leaning on and closed her eyes.

She ran her tongue over her lips, catching the blood from her split bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Emki,” she mumbled. “If I hadn’t left, we would still be safe at the manor. None of this would be happening.”

She felt a warm glow over her heart and smiled despite the pain. “Glad to see I have your support. When we get out of here… if we get out of here… I will try and fix things. I promise.”

Lucy heard the door creak open. “Miss Trainor, I’m glad to see you and your friend have had a chance to rest. Are you ready to do what we asked of you?”

“Bite me,” Lucy snapped, spitting blood onto the man’s shoe as she spoke.

“Oh, honey. We’re going to do so much more than that.”

* * *

“I brought you food,” Rita called out to Larry as she trudged through the long grass. It was beginning to become a habit now. Larry would spend all day in the garden, sitting on Lucy’s favorite bench, and Rita would come out three times a day to try and make sure he ate something. The meals weren’t up to Larry’s standard of cooking, but she doubted the man even noticed. “I brought your coat as well.” She put the food down next to him and wrapped the coat around his shivering form. She sighed when she noticed the untouched plate next to him. “You really should eat something,” she admonished gently, reaching for the plate. A cold hand enclosed around hers, and she froze.

This was different; he normally didn’t even register that she was there. “Thank you, Rita.”

“I’m always here for you, Larry,” she told him gently as blue eyes turned to look at her. She placed her hand on top of his, hoping to put some warmth back into his system. “Maybe you should come inside. We all miss you, and all your plants have died because you’re not there to take care of them.”

Larry shook his head. His hair was longer than Rita had ever seen it, and he clearly hadn’t shaved in days. Rita knew she needed to put her foot down, for his own good. “Larry, you are coming inside. You are going to have a shower and a nap, and then we can start considering our next steps.”

Larry sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her anymore. He didn’t have the energy for much of anything anymore. In truth, he would have starved a long time ago if it weren’t for Keeg keeping him going, but even Keeg was beginning to give up. He could feel it.ing, but even Keeg was beginning to give up. He could feel it.

* * *

“I have decided, I have gotten tired of your refusal to comply,” the man told Lucy, a grin splitting his face. “We have decided that we are going to try something a little different.”

Lucy didn’t respond, just watching him from her place on the floor. “I’m not going to ask questions anymore, Miss Trainor. After all, you were always a woman of action. So, rather than merely telling us where the freaks are hiding, you are going to take us there.”

Lucy glared at him, but he continued to speak as if she had responded. “Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how we plan to make you. But you see, that’s where things get fun.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle with a computer chip inside. “We’re going to put this in your head and wire it into your nervous system. Then, if you do or say anything we don’t like, it sends electricity through your entire nervous system and kills you and your little friend.”

He was obviously hoping for a reaction, but Lucy didn’t give him the satisfaction. “I bet you’re now thinking, well, my friend can just remove it. But I think you’re forgetting something, Miss Trainor. The first thing we did when you arrived was to give you an injection. It binds you together and disables that thing’s abilities. We developed it for your grandfather. I always wanted to get a chance to test it.”

Four men pushed a hospital bed into the room, but Lucy didn’t even spare them a glance. That is until they started pulling her to her feet and forced her face down onto the bed. She tried to fight them off, but she was too weak. All she could do, as she felt a scalpel slicing into the base of her skull, was scream.

* * *

Lucy closed her eyes; her hand was raised, ready to knock on the door. She didn’t want to do this. Even though she felt hurt and betrayed all those months ago.

“Lucy!” She heard her grandfather’s voice from behind her. She dropped her hand and turned to see him running towards her.

Larry couldn’t believe it when he saw her on the doorstep. He had been searching for her for months. But here she was. She looked dirty and bedraggled. She didn’t seem like she had been fed in the whole time she was gone.

“Grandpa.” She was swaying on her feet. Larry stepped forward just in time to catch her as her legs gave out beneath her. He gently lowered her to the floor. He sat on the step, her head rested on his shoulder. She was so weak that she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy.” Larry held her tightly and placed a kiss in her hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Not… your… fault,” she told him, struggling for breath between each word. “Bureau-” She had barely finished the word before she went completely stiff. Every muscle in her body contracted as electricity shot through her. The only thing stopping her screams from being deafening was the strain already on her vocal cords.

Larry froze, unsure what to do. So, when he felt Keeg straining for release, he wasn’t in a position to argue. He watched, dumbstruck, as Keeg reached down and touched Lucy’s head where her skull met her spine. Their fingers appeared to go through her skin without leaving a mark but causing the area to glow faintly blue. Before long, the convulsions stopped, and the girl became still and silent.

If he hadn’t been able to feel the warmth of her skin, see the rise and fall of her chest, Larry would have thought her dead.

* * *

Larry was on the verge of wearing a hole in the floor when The Chief finally came to get him. Larry had originally been going to sit in while the chip was removed from Lucy’s head, but all his nervous energy was making it difficult for the chief to concentrate.   
“How is she?” Larry asked, as soon as the door to the lab creaked open.   
“She’ll make a full recovery.” Larry let out a sigh of relief.   
“What was it? What happened to her?” Larry wasn’t sure that he wanted the answer, but he did need it.

“They implanted her with a behavior modification chip. It was programmed to electrocute her if she did anything they didn’t like. It had a built-in tracker and microphone to keep track of her. There’s a serum in her system to keep her negative spirit powerless, but it will wear off in a few days.”

“Does that mean they’ll be coming?”

Caulder shook his head. “There is magic on the house that prevents it from being found by anyone who doesn’t have permission to enter. I am truly sorry, Larry. The Bureau of Normalcy would have never implanted something like that in a willing operative.” Larry didn’t respond and instead pushed past him and into the room.   
Lucy was sleeping peacefully on the lab table, a bandage around her throat to protect the fresh incisions on the back of her neck. Larry ran a hand over her hair before gently bending to pick her up. He stood there for a moment, her head resting against his shoulder.

“I swear I will make this up to you. Both of you.” Cauler swore, though he was damned if he knew how.  
“It’s a little too late for that,” Larry told him before taking Lucy upstairs and tucking her into her bed. Larry just hoped it wasn’t too late for him.

* * *

When Lucy woke up, she was surprised to see Rita in the chair next to her bed.

Hearing movement, Rita glanced up from the book she was reading. “Good to see you’re finally back with us,” she said.

“Where’s Grandpa?”

“I sent him to get some sleep. I wanted to have a word with you before you saw him,” Rita explained, putting the book to one side.

Lucy sighed. “If you’re about to give me a lecture, you can save it,” she replied, sitting up to lean against the headboard.

“On the contrary, I’m here to… to ask a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“First, I want you to understand that your grandfather is a very caring man. He feels things very deeply.” Lucy nodded her understanding, allowing Rita to continue. “When he thought you might have been sent here to betray us, it hurt him deeply.”

“But I would never do that. He should know I would never do that.”

“Maybe, but he thought your father would never do that either.” Lucy opened her mouth to respond but closed it again. What could she say to that? Luckily, she didn’t need to as Rita continued. “I’m not saying he dealt with it the right way, in fact completely the contrary. I only wanted to ask that you try to consider everything he’s been through. He’s not had a family for fifty years now, and I’ve never seen him as happy as when he’s spending time with you.”

Lucy considered that for a moment. “But… what if things have changed? What if we can’t go back to how things were?”

“Who says change is a bad thing? Sometimes things need to fracture and break in order to make way for something new. Something better.” Rita got to her feet. “Now, you need rest. We can talk more tomorrow, if you still want to.”

“Thank you, Rita.” As Rita got to the door, Lucy spoke again. “What you said about Grandpa? you did get one thing wrong. He did have a family. He had you.”

Rita was never more grateful for her acting training than in that moment as it was the only thing that kept her voice steady. “Goodnight, Lucy.”

“Goodnight, Rita.”

* * *

When she walked into the lounge that morning, she seemed… different. She was wearing a red leather jacket over a red and white striped t-shirt. Her jeans hugged her figure, and her shoes were encased in a pair of black high-top sneakers. A pair of rose-colored aviators were perched in amongst her dark curls.

She saw Larry sitting on the couch and paused in the doorway. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“I… should probably be going,” Lucy told him.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

“I see.”

“You see?”

“You want to be anywhere else.”

“Yes.” Lucy stopped when she realized what she said. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I meant I need some space. Some time to be someone other than your granddaughter.”

“You don’t want to be my granddaughter?”

“No, I don’t mean it like that.” Lucy sat down next to him and placed a hand on top of his. “I just… what I mean is, my whole life, people have had certain expectations of me. They all expected so much of me. Because I was out of the closet, I was expected to constantly be fighting for LGBT rights. Because I was your granddaughter, everyone expected me to either be the best pilot on the base or to crash and burn.” Larry flinched at the unfortunate wording. “Sorry. But you know what I mean. Everything I have ever had, I’ve had to fight for. But I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m done. I don’t want to be Larry Trainor’s granddaughter destined for either greatness or failure. I don’t want to be the figurehead of an equal rights movement. I want, for the first time in my life, I want to live for myself. To not have to take orders. To be able to do the things I want to do, when I want to do them. I want to be me.” Lucy stopped, remembering something. “Do you remember what you said when we first met?”

“What?”

“You told me that you couldn’t be the person I wanted you to be. Well, I don’t think I can be who you want, who anyone wants, anymore. I just want to be me.”

“And what does being you mean?” Larry asked. “Does it mean leaving again?”

“I still need to figure out exactly what it means… but no. I don’t want to leave again. That is… if I’m allowed to stay.”

“Of course you are.” Larry pulled her into a hug, and she melted into his arms. Whatever else might happen between them, they were family. They were home. And always would be. 


End file.
